How to Create Compelling Infographics and Market Them Online

Can we all agree that everyone wants to have a website that compels people to visit it, read it and share the content? There are many ways to achieve this and one of them is to create compelling infographics.

Why Should You Create Infographics?

To draw attention to data and statistics in reports, which might otherwise be ignored.

To explain complicated processes or strategies easily so others can mimic them.

To showcase products and services in a visually understandable method.

Not all infographics are innately entertaining, informative or necessary; and having a bad infographic can be worse than not creating one at all. Let’s explore the elements of creating a compelling infographic.

Make It Relevant to the Target Audience

First, no matter how well-designed your infographic is, no one is going to bother to read it or share it if it’s boring, useless or just rehashes similar data.

There are two approaches to use when considering what is relevant:

Choose a topic that’s “trending,” meaning one that’s popular, of interest and being talked about right now. But, at the same time, make sure it is “evergreen,” meaning it will still be useful in the weeks, months and even years to come.

Choose a topic that might not be trending yet, but one that is needed or important. For example, an infographic like the one recently created by Local Site Submit. This infographic tied to their directory submission services and how they choose which sites they submit businesses to. It also visually explained how many businesses they served along with the increase each of those businesses received in online visibility.

If your competitors already use infographics, look at what has been created and observe what kind of reach has been achieved. This isn’t about regurgitating what they’ve already done, but adding value and addressing what’s been missed.

Another great place to find ideas is on the various social media sites. Browse your target audience to see what they are talking about that’s relevant to your business or industry.

Other resources for finding relevant topics:

Google Trends: Shows you trending topics related to keywords or industry terms that you enter.

Industry forums and blogs.

Twitter: Search for hashtags related to your business or industry.

Designing the Infographic

Sometimes designers will go crazy when you give them free reign on creating your infographic.

It’s important that the design is creative and compelling, but there are a few other points to consider in the design:

It needs to match your brand, which means your logo is included, the brand colors are used and the images are inline with your other marketing materials.

Design your infographics so they are longer rather than wider. Vertical infographics are more conducive to scrolling and viewing on websites, especially on mobile devices.

Be sure to include your copyright, the source of the content and give all proper attribution.

I recommend checking out this SlideShare from Cool Infographics for more tips.

Make it Easy for Others to Share

Obviously, after all of these efforts you want your awesome infographic shared online.

There are two items you definitely want to include with your graphic on your website:

Create an embed code with a free tool like Siege Media. It provides you with a code to include below the infographic for others to easily share it on their website and includes a link back to your website as the creator of the infographic.

Make sure the page you have the infographic on has all the social sharing buttons integrated, to facilitate one-click shareability to various social media sites.

Marketing the Infographic

Along with creating the infographic, you want to have a marketing strategy in place to make others aware of your infographic, so they want to share it.

These are just a few of the items to include in the strategy:

Create a promotional image marketing the infographic that can be shared on social media along with a link to the full infographic on the website.

Cut the infographic into sections, adding the appropriate company name and copyright, to share segments of the image on social media with a link to the full infographic on the website.

Write supporting copy explaining each component of the infographic to publish in a detailed blog post, similar to this one Local Site Submit created for their “Top 50 In A Nutshell” infographic.

Email your list about the infographic and ask them to review and share it with their network.

Write promotional social media updates that tie-in the data shared in the infographic and link to the full infographic for the reader to learn more.

There is a lot more to marketing an infographic like submitting it to infographic-sharing websites, and reaching out to influencers on social media, but we’ll leave that for another time.

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